[Madelaine Amee]

A while ago we had a thread running on here about the deliberate horrific crash of the German plane into a mountainside. In reading the online news this morning I came across this :

"Lubitz seemed to be toying with the plane's settings on a March 24 flight from Duesseldorf to Barcelona, programming it for sharp descent multiple times in a 4 1/2-minute period while the pilot was out of the cockpit before resetting the controls, France's BEA investigation agency said in an interim report on the crash."

Why didn't the flight attendants or the pilot report this to the company? This was not the first time he had played with the controls slowing the plane and playing with the controls. IMHO this newly released information gives grounds for a huge lawsuit. It would appear to me that this crash could have been avoided if someone had been doing their job .....

[villagetinker]

I heard the same story on the news this morning, and made a similar comment to my wife. If he was playing with the controls while alone, this should have been a red flag and should have been reported. It will be interesting to see what the airline says.....

[B767drvr]

Originally Posted by Madelaine Amee

Why didn't the flight attendants or the pilot report this to the company?

Report "what" exactly?

[Madelaine Amee]

Originally Posted by B767drvr

Report "what" exactly?

There is extensive coverage on what he was doing on both the TV and the internet news sites, but this caught my attention:

Lubitz seemed to be toying with the plane's settings on a March 24 flight from Duesseldorf to Barcelona, programming it for sharp descent multiple times in a 4 1/2-minute period while the pilot was out of the cockpit before resetting the controls, France's BEA investigation agency said in an interim report on the crash.

If they knew he was doing this why wasn't it picked up by the right people before the tradegy.

[B767drvr]

Originally Posted by Madelaine Amee

There is extensive coverage on what he was doing on both the TV and the internet news sites, but this caught my attention:

Lubitz seemed to be toying with the plane's settings on a March 24 flight from Duesseldorf to Barcelona, programming it for sharp descent multiple times in a 4 1/2-minute period while the pilot was out of the cockpit before resetting the controls, France's BEA investigation agency said in an interim report on the crash.

If they knew he was doing this why wasn't it picked up by the right people before the tradegy.

Madelaine,

I'll try to be brief and keep it simple:

On a previous flight with the aircraft established in a descent, Lubitz reset the altitude window to 100' or near 100', but later changed it to the correctly assigned altitude. When the captain returned to the cockpit, he would have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA the incorrect altitude was briefly entered in the altitude window. There is no instrument or display in the cockpit which stores/displays previously entered altitude entries. The aircraft remained in a constant descent (as it's designed to) while Lubitz changed the altitude setting so no one in the cabin, including flight attendants, would have any idea anything was amiss.

The only way any of this was discovered was by analyzing the individual flight data recorders of all tails Lubitz flew recently. The flight data recorders record some (approximately) 1,800 different inputs (nearly all of which are not visible to the pilots - exact control positions, temperatures and pressures of multiple systems).

Even so, there is no specific prohibition that I'm aware of against setting sea level momentarily. Some might argue it would aid in their descent planning to see the newly computed "end of descent" point visually depicted in relation to the airfield.

(Just a gentle caution against prematurely assigning blame where it's not warranted.)

[Challenger]

Ah-- a post from someone who has a working knowledge of the subject!!!!

Thanks
So much of what we see on this site is flawed info.

[Madelaine Amee]

Originally Posted by B767drvr

Madelaine,

I'll try to be brief and keep it simple:

On a previous flight with the aircraft established in a descent, Lubitz reset the altitude window to 100' or near 100', but later changed it to the correctly assigned altitude. When the captain returned to the cockpit, he would have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA the incorrect altitude was briefly entered in the altitude window. There is no instrument or display in the cockpit which stores/displays previously entered altitude entries. The aircraft remained in a constant descent (as it's designed to) while Lubitz changed the altitude setting so no one in the cabin, including flight attendants, would have any idea anything was amiss.

The only way any of this was discovered was by analyzing the individual flight data recorders of all tails Lubitz flew recently. The flight data recorders record some (approximately) 1,800 different inputs (nearly all of which are not visible to the pilots - exact control positions, temperatures and pressures of multiple systems).

Even so, there is no specific prohibition that I'm aware of against setting sea level momentarily. Some might argue it would aid in their descent planning to see the newly computed "end of descent" point visually depicted in relation to the airfield.

(Just a gentle caution against prematurely assigning blame where it's not warranted.)

Thank you for your very condescending account of what happens during flight. I'll keep this in mind before I venture onto this site again. But, it's always good to have an expert on hand to put one right when needed.

[DeanFL]

Originally Posted by Madelaine Amee

Thank you for your very condescending account of what happens during flight. I'll keep this in mind before I venture onto this site again. But, it's always good to have an expert on hand to put one right when needed.

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Oh my... I simply have to put my .02 in. He WAS NOT condescending in my opinion. He is a 767 pilot that provided an expert factual dissertation in his response. As the previous poster said, not his opinion but working knowledge.
I must say, never being in an actual cockpit, that is exactly what I thought probably happened - and there was no ALERT possible by the crew of his previous flight - nothing to report. Would be like a auto driver playing around with cruise control in a car but not activating it...the passenger would never know.

I do feel sorry for those new posters on ToTV that get slammed for no reason and get intimidated for a good reason. THIS was not it as far as I can see. B767drvr was factual and professionsl - just as good pilots are trained...